Subash Saud¹ , Padma Nath Atreya² , Nitisha Bhattarai¹ , Suman Dhakal³ , Amrit Kumar Bohara⁴

1 Faculty of Agriculture, Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan, 44209, Nepal
2 Temperate Horticulture Development Center, Marpha, Mustang, 33100, Nepal
3 Department of Agronomy, Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan, 44209, Nepal
4 Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (IAAS), Prithu Technical College, Tribhuvan University, 22412, Nepal
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Horticulture, 2024, Vol. 14, No. 5   doi: 10.5376/ijh.2024.14.0029
Received: 06 Jul., 2024    Accepted: 22 Aug., 2024    Published: 12 Sep., 2024

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Saud S., Atreya P.N., Bhattarai N., Dhakal S., and Bohara A.K., 2024, Assessment of physical and chemical properties of different cultivars of apple (Malus spp) in Mustang, Nepal, International Journal of Horticulture, 14(5): 275-282 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2024.14.0029)

This study was conducted at Temperate Horticulture Development Center, Marpha, Mustang to evaluate the physical and chemical properties of six different cultivars of apple (Tsukura, Saune, Red Delicious, Rich a Red Delicious, Royal Delicious and Golden Delicious) from January to September 2023. For the experiment, four trees of each cultivar were selected as replication and cultivar as treatment which was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). Physical and chemical properties were studied by harvesting. Physical characteristics included individual fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit length, fruit width, individual seed weight, seed length and seed width and mesocarp thickness. Chemical characteristics included pH, TSS, TA and TSS/TA. Data analysis was done through R Studio. Physical and chemical characteristics varied considerably among cultivars. Physical characteristics revealed that the highest individual fruit weight (210.35 g) and size (Length 7.22 cm and Width 7.70 cm) was seen in Rich a Red Delicious and lowest in Tsukura whose weight was 22.25 g and size (Length 3.38 cm and Width 3.42 cm). Also, chemical analysis revealed that pH (4.57) was highest in Saune. TSS/TA was found maximum in Rich a Red Delicious (53.12) and minimum in Saune (17.30). From the study, it was found that Tsukura and Saune are suitable for juice purposes whereas the other four cultivars are suitable for fresh table consumption.

Apple (Malus spp); Cultivar; Physical characteristics; Chemical characteristics